Appetizers for lunch

Welcome to those of you who found your way here from recent write-ups in Boing Boing, Neatorama, Slashfood and Serious Eats! Please feel free to ask questions or comment even on old entries, and accept my apologies for some lingering issues from the site’s being hacked last week (some character encoding is wonky, and Google-powered internal search is down until the site is reindexed by Google).

To give the rice the red and green color, I mixed the rice with red and green hana-ebi powdered dried shrimp. A variation on sakura denbu (a sweet powder of ground codfish that’s often used in chirashizushi), hana ebi is a savory shrimp powder from Hawaii. You can see the results of all three types in an early snack bento for my son. (see my page on Decorative Food for other ideas)

Product: I tried the Nancy’s Petite Quiches from Costco’s frozen appetizer section, and found them to be quite nice for a convenience food (also available at BJ’s and Sam’s Club). My preschooler loves them as they’re child-sized finger food for him (with cheese — he loves cheese). They come in both Lorraine (swiss cheese and bacon) and Florentine versions (swiss cheese and spinach). It was quick and easy to pop a few into my convection toaster oven while I got the rest of the lunch ready, just be sure to cool them thoroughly before packing them in a closed lunch container. If you pack them when they’re still hot, you’ll get condensation inside the box that’ll make the quiches soggy and unappetizing. There’s an interesting thread on Chowhound with additional reviews of Costco foods, not just the appetizers. (Disclaimer: I have no commercial affiliation with Nancy’s or Costco.)

Packing: After letting the mini quiches cool down to avoid getting soggy in the closed container, I plugged the gaps with some dried blueberries to stabilize the lunch for transport and provide color contrast. The lunch is packed in two tiers (280ml and 180ml) of a 4-tier nesting/stacking Thomas the Tank Engine bento box set from Moritaya (store details in my SF Bay Area shopping guide for bento gear). Because the larger yellow container is only packed halfway-up with food, I’d estimate there to be a total of 420ml worth of food in this lunch (still a bit on the large size for a 3.5-year-old according to the bento box size guidelines, so good as lunch and a snack).

Verdict: Good over time. Bug ate all of the quiches and blueberries at preschool, and finished the oranges and grapes at the playground after school.

I love those mini quiches I put a bunch in a container with a piece of tinfoil and pack it on ice to take to work. I heat them up on the airplanes (on the tinfoil because airplane ovens are filthy…) and in a few minutes I have a great snack!

Love the meatballs – you get them at Costco? Are they frozen? I have gotten the Aidells sausages there are love them. I’ve been a fan of Nancy’s quiche’s for years. They are super for parties and totally inspired for bento. They make a little bit larger ones that could be cut in half for an adult lunch too.

@9 from fossettes: Oh gosh, thanks for tagging me on the meme — but I already feel so guilty for not responding to the other memes I’ve been tagged on. Maybe one of these days I’ll do a super-meme post and get them all out of the way at once…

@10 from kenji: Wow, as a kindergarten teacher in Japan you’re in a unique position of being able to look at all sorts of different kinds of kids’ bento lunches. Any interesting observations to share with us?

@11 from Nikki: I think the meatballs are not frozen when I get them at Costco, but I rebag them in one-quart bags and freeze them when I get home for speedy lunch options. Agree on the mini quiches for parties — they’ve totally saved me more than once when we’ve had people over and dinner is delayed…

@13 from marybeth414: Think anything strongly flavored and not too moist/wet for onigiri fillings, marybeth. Tuna or chicken salad, leftover meat or fish that you chop/flake up small (and flavor assertively to balance out the bland rice), maybe your child’s favorite vegetable (sauteed, chopped and strongly flavored). Don’t feel that you need to stick to a Japanese theme at all — some of my favorite onigiri fillings are oddballs like chopped kimchi, chopped bulgogi (Korean barbecued beef), mango chutney with fresh mint, etc.

@13 from marybeth414: I realize I didn’t answer your question about freezing filled onigiri. Yes, you can freeze filled onigiri, but then you need to exercise caution about what you choose to fill it with. Anything oily is going to heat much faster than the rice, etc. My preferred method is just to heat up plain frozen rice, and fill them fresh with whatever I feel like. I have frozen onigiri that I’ve made out of mixed rice (i.e. with furikake rice seasoning and something like shredded chicken) with okay results.

@8 & 21 from Cherie: D’oh! Sorry about that, Cherie — I’d meant to come back to it with more info for you, but it got away from me. Gohan Desu Yo! is a jarred condiment of savory seaweed paste, commonly eaten with rice (and a nice onigiri rice ball filling). More info here.

Hi Biggie, I’ve been reading your website fanatically after stumbling on it in search of toddler lunches. Lucky me! I now have a new hobby and lunch menu for my 3yr old girl who starts preschool this Monday! So I wanted to thank you for your inspiration, ideas, and all the hard work you put in in educating other busy moms.
One question, would you ever use sushi rice to make balls/shapes or just plain onigiri?
Thanks again!